Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/165

 trickled from the corners of his mouth. He recognized that he was done for, at last. With one final supreme effort he reeled, faced about and fell with his head to the east, toward Mecca.

O'Rourke did not stop; the dun racer passed the fallen Tawarek with giant, league-consuming strides, and as it did so, to make all things sure, the Irishman sent another bullet into the prone body.

Simultaneously he gave the cry for halt, dropped the rifle and leaped from the back of the racer, while yet at full speed, landing on his feet by the head of the wounded camel.

It was kneeling, swaying from side to side, its long-lashed eyes wide with pain, fast glazing. O'Rourke was by the saddle in one spring; he drew his knife and cut the ropes that bound madame, wrenched her from the back of the pack animal just as it slumped over upon its side, kicking spasmodically in its death struggle. For a moment he held the woman he loved in his arms—there, with nothing above them but the wide, blazing sky, with nothing about but the seething sands, with none to observe but the well-trained dun racer, that had halted a few feet distant.

She was conscious; by a magnificent demand upon her courage she had staved off the faintness which was clutching at her sentience.

There was a breathless pause, while he collected his faculties for action; hitherto every atom of him had seemed concentrated on the purpose of overtaking madame; now it was with an effort that he remembered the equal necessity of encompassing a return to El Kebr.

Perhaps it was an outside influence that finally brought him to active knowledge of what he must do. Faint, far-